The Young India

Ananth Venkatesh

Secularism is a laudable concept that has been constitutionalised in several countries of the world. France and Turkey are two examples of nations that come to mind. They have an intransigently secular constitution that is vehemently opposed to the infiltration of religion into the affairs of the state.

The Turkish military remains a bastion of obdurate secularism that feels threatened by the Islamist personality of the party that is currently guiding the country. However, it would be prudent to…

Ananth Venkatesh

“Undue reliance on tranquil international diplomacy and forceless intranational diplomacy can backfire badly, thereby humiliating the national ego.”

The monstrosity of terrorists demonstrated by the recent bloodletting in Pune [Photo: top; source] illustrates the deviousness of Islamist fundamentalism. The blameless victims of the blast at a popular store of bakery in Pune are the latest in the enormous list of unfortunate Indians who have been wolfed by Islamist bigots.

India is a nation that has juddered…

Kartikey Sehgal

India is losing land to her neighbour. The author says that “it should be no surprise that Indians are getting restless or communal or impatient as is often reported by writers and thinkers in the print and television medium.”

Land is sacred for Indians and it presents one difference between the nationalists and the others. They former love land and land is equal to religion for them; you can pray to the universe or you can pray to the idols…

Kartikey Sehgal

[Fiction]

On 26TH January, 2010, every state of India paraded its best to the nation. Maharashtra presented the much celebrated dubba wallas who travel in sweat and danger on (in, over) local trains. Who ensure that the food reaches the Mumbai residents on time. These men, marked for their punctuality and honesty, live in a state that sees farmers dying in Vidarbha.

Among the celebratory troops of states were men, or at least one, who wondered if the salutes…

Kartikey Sehgal

Aman Ki Asha (AKA) is the new romantic buzzword between India and Pakistan formulated by mostly those people who have not suffered terrorist attacks and have their family and limbs intact. The movement, historic, has been celebrated by a 20 hour gun salute in Srinagar with instructions on laying the table and selecting the dishes coming directly from Pakistan.

According to this new peace movement, artists from India and Pakistan will get together and sing…

Kartikey Sehgal

(In coffee shops, restaurants and elsewhere, a selection from conversations on India and its ancient culture. The author has connected the various thoughts as a story. Written in conversational style and the author addresses the reader at some places.)

How old are we (the ‘youth for new culture’ variety) to demand that we do not want the India of the past because we cannot connect to it. And hence we start movements and labels groups as superstitious and backward because…

Kartikey Sehgal

The author writes that, “‘Indian culture’ is a cover-up for religious enforcements. Most colleges that enforce codes to ‘protect’ culture are protecting the religion. If Indian culture was so dear to them, then the study of Indian philosophy would be an important, if not a compulsory part of the curriculum.”

A popular college in South Bombay (Mumbai) had, some years ago, and much to the dismay of the students, banned the prom night. Nobody called it…

Kartikey Sehgal

(On the notion that India was never really a nation because of it’s pluralism.
The author writes that:
Pluralism is a human quality that transcends itself into the society. Our nation is criticized for being disunited against foreign aggression; ‘hence the concept of nationhood was weak’. Does this mean that aggression and cruelty are the hallmarks of a nation?) 

Physical reality and spiritual reality are inseparable. The mind and the decisions that probe the physical reality…

Kartikey Sehgal

“I am talking about the poor people who are in touch with their country, their philosophy, Krishna and Ganapati; the people who told a model with half her chest exposed to cover it with a shawl so she could participate in the Ganapati festival freely. The ‘Slumdog’ variety wouldn’t do so; they would molest her”.

Are the men who celebrate Ganapati on the streets uncouth? Is there a system to civility? 

Rich people dance at discos and other city…

Kartikey Sehgal

It was while protecting his mother and home from outsiders that child Ganapati lost his head in a battle with his father Shiva. Subsequently, on Shiva’s orders, the head of the animal which lay with its head facing the the northern direction was fitted to Ganesh’s body. And Indians worship Ganapati as the protector of homes. As a person/God/with form/formless who binds the family. When we praise the family structure in India, we praise Ganesha. That is why Hindu homes…